On GNU, free software, copyleft, and open source.

Of the four of these, I am least familiar with GNU. I'm not really familiar with anything about it, though I am curious about the GNU manifesto. I regret not leaving myself time to read it, but I'm leaving it open in a tab so as to remind myself the next time I'm at the compy. From my current understanding of GNU, it seems like something that I could be into if I knew more than I did about coding. Plus I am a sucker for recursive acronyms.

Free software I know more about, and indeed is my choice when available. For instance, my preferred audio editing software is a free program called Audacity. Though perhaps not as powerful as its less free counterparts, it is still quite useful. Interestingly, one of my favorite aspects of Audacity is simply the fact that it is free -- that I am allowed to use it freely, and even to download and add additional plugins, as opposed to having to pay several hundred dollars for similar software then pay more for additional plugins.

Copyleft is a term that I've encountered before, albeit in a different context -- that of Discordianism, which I believe has a similar free view of the world (as well as a similar sense of humor). While I appreciate the sentiments of copyleft, I personally prefer Creative Commons: though both allow free use of content, Creative Commons gives more control and flexibility to the creator over the specifics of that free use, such as referencing the author of the content.

As for open source, I am thrilled by the idea. Not only does it help make a project better by inviting others to assist in development, it gives power to all involved in shaping the project whichever way is desired. I'm especially interested in how the idea of open source applies outside of software -- the most obvious example there might be the remixing community. Wikipedia mentions many open source projects that look interesting, especially some of the open source music and open source record labels. At a later time, I will definitely be looking more into this, and might even post a blog about open source music; although not tied directly with downloading, I believe the two have common ground in ethos that warrants thought.